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Entry tags:
Fic: when all the sunlight feels forgotten, Person of Interest
Disclaimer: not mine
Rating: G/PG (maybe some language?)
Genre: post-episode, fix-it, comfort-fic
Spoilers: everything up through 3x9
Characters: John Reese, Lionel Fusco, Zoe Morgan, Harold Finch (brief), Joss Carter (brief)
Pairings: vaguely impled Carter/Reese? (I sort of intended it to be there, but it can be read as non-romantic)
Length: 2000+ words
Notes: I wrote this last night. It's the first thing I've written in a good six months. It's not particularly dramatic, and it's not really breaking any new ground. But I enjoyed writing it, so I suppose that's what counts.
As always, the hardest part of the damned thing was finding a title (dear Neil Tennant, you are not helping)
when all the sunlight feels forgotten
by ALC Punk!
"Hey, Carter. What're you tryin' to do, one-up me on getting shot?" Fusco's voice filtered into John's brain, followed by the curious certainty that Carter was going to reply.
She didn't.
Fusco continued talking. "Right, right. You didn't try to get shot, you were just doin' your job. Hey, partner, I think you could'a taken the night off. No one would have called you on it."
There was a strained note in Fusco's voice, and reality told John that he shouldn't be surprised. Joss Carter by all rights should be dead. She had been dead and still in his arms while his heart wrenched into pieces. Emotional pain had always been easier to deny, but getting shot twice had been as nothing to what he'd felt right in that moment.
"Mr. Reese, I don't think--" Finch's wavering voice had broken John's pain just for a moment. He was filled with anger at it, but then Joss had sucked in another, almost too-shallow breath. "I think she's just unconscious."
Frantic, he'd reached for her neck, fingers registering the edge of her vest before the tips found the fluttering almost gone pulse.
Hollow-points. Simmons had almost succeeded in killing Joss Carter even through the vest she'd been wearing. John had breathed deep and then focused on keeping her alive.
By the time the paramedics had gotten there, he was greying-out around the edges, his hands stained with blood from them both. He didn't remember much from the moment they pulled her from his arms; just stumbling, shifting images of flashing lights and bloody hands and Finch making quiet requests in that oh-so-normal way of his.
Waking again didn't hurt as much as it should, and John could feel the edge of something strong pushing at the edges of his perception. A narcotic. Probably one of the higher-end ones.
"Oh, I get it," Fusco said, his voice breaking into John's thought-patterns again. "This is a pissing contest with Wonder Boy over there. See who can take the most bullets in the most interesting places. Well, I think he's got you beat on number, but you got him beat on style."
Fusco's voice was tired, cracked. As though he hadn't stopped talking for hours, as though he desperately needed something to drink. He also sounded in pain, and John wondered vaguely how his fingers were holding up.
Then again, talking wasn't a strain on your fingers.
Definitely a higher-end narcotic.
"Could be worse. Could be some sort of rash." Fusco was definitely winding down, and John wondered if he'd started with heart-felt words and quiet stories about his kid. Maybe. Maybe he'd made mythical play-dates for their children, or plotted their rivalry in college.
John couldn't actually remember how old either boy was, though.
There was a pause, and the sound of water being poured into a cup, being drunk. Fusco made a satisfied little Ah noise, then cleared his throat. "Y'know, Carter, I'm gonna have to bust your chops about this. Laying around while honest cops got a shit-ton of work to do? Definitely not good for morale."
"I thought work wasn't good for your morale, Lionel," John whispered through cracked lips and a scratchy, dry throat. He hoped Fusco would be kind enough to share his water, but he wasn't going to hold his breath.
"It ain't." There was movement, and John could see the shadow of Fusco looming through his eye-lids. "So just remember that the next time I haul your ass out of the fire."
"Thought it was the other way around."
Fusco made a scoffing noise, "Yeah, well, you thought wrong."
John tried to swallow, to dampen his throat and found that he was coughing instead. The pain ripped through his shoulder then, hot and swift, a pinching in his chest and an ache in his bones. Oh, right. He'd gotten shot. He let his eyes flicker open. "Could use some water."
Grumbling about ungrateful people, Fusco turned away and busied himself with the water pitcher and glass. John wasn't fooled, though. Even in the bruises and dim light, he'd seen the relief and worry in Fusco's eyes.
They weren't out of the woods yet, obviously.
"Here--" Fusco moved closer, clumsily helping John up enough to gulp down some of the water.
He ignored how much that hurt, how little the liquid seemed to help with the fur coating his throat.
Bear. He wondered what Bear was doing. Had Finch let Shaw take him for a walk?
"You know, it was, uh, it was touch and go there for a while." Fusco set the glass down and leaned back in the obviously-uncomfortable hospital chair. "Carter, I mean. You were all right, though you'd lost a lot of blood."
"Is she--?" He couldn't even bring himself to ask, and he could feel himself stilling for the blow that Fusco might level.
"She's good. She's stable, at least." Shifting, Fusco looked away from John towards the bed he could see from the corner of his eyes. "They said she might not wake for a while. The bullet shattered and did a lot of damage to her breastbone and lungs. She lost almost as much blood as you did--good thing, too, doc said if she'd been conscious and panicking she'd've bled out too fast."
That wasn't really the best news he'd had, but it would do for the moment. John ran his tongue around his mouth, grimaced, and shifted his shoulders slightly. Just enough to test the limits of the drugs coursing through his system.
There was still pain, but it was bearable. He'd have to have them stop intravenous doses soon, otherwise he'd be too muddled for whatever was coming next.
"Are we safe?"
Not the sort of question he wanted to ask, but better than the alternative.
"Don't know. Maybe. Four-eyes somehow bought out the entire wing of the hospital. It's like a ghost town out there, but Shaw and Carter's ex are keepin' an eye on things."
"Taylor?"
"He's sleeping in the cot on the other side of the room. Said he'd be safest with his mother." Fusco huffed out a breath, his tone changing. "My kid's got the bunk next to his."
It was putting all their eggs in one basket. John didn't like that. Didn't like the feeling that at any moment, Simmons could walk through the door to finish the job he'd started. He pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the spinning of the room and the stabs of pain. "We need to get to safer cover."
"We can't move Joss."
The words deflated John, and he slumped back against his pillows, letting his eyes slip half-closed while he tried to think through the pounding of his blood and the cotton in his brain.
"We don't have to." Zoe Morgan's voice sounded as self-assured as it always did, though John wondered if she was a little tired. The scent of her perfume reached his bed before she did, and he raised his eyebrows at her as encouragement to continue. She nodded to Fusco and leaned a hip against John's bed. "Word on the street is that the last HR lieutenant has been found dead. Murdered by person or persons unknown."
"I'll believe that when I see the body," said Fusco, peering up at Zoe, then looking back at Carter's still form.
John agreed, and idly wondered just who Zoe had talked to. He'd always wondered if her network would be useful in his line of work. Then again, dragging her in deeper would have been dangerous. If she'd even been interested.
"We thought you might not believe Ms. Morgan's word." Finch's voice sounded flat coming from the speaker on Zoe's phone. "But the proof was delivered to detective Carter's precinct less than an hour ago. The Captain received Simmons' head on a platter."
A quick rush of emotion blasted through John, anger, annoyance, ambivalence--Simmons had been his to kill, and yet, he couldn't regret that the man was dead.
Fusco peered at the image on Zoe's phone and made a pained noise. "Yeah, that's Simmons' head on a platter all right."
"John?" Zoe raised an eyebrow and held the phone out to him. He took it, feeling the pull in his injured shoulder as he brought it close enough to see. He'd staged scenes like that before, he knew the things to look for--even in a grainy, smart-phone image. But the head looked genuine to him, and he nodded before handing the phone back.
"Finch," he murmured, "How long until we know for certain?"
"The tip and the image came from my old chess partner, Mr. Reese."
Elias. It occurred to John that Elias would have had a score to settle with Simmons as much as anyone else had. Still, it seemed convenient.
"Maybe I should check into it." The words sounded reasonable, and really, the drugs he'd been given were working great, John reasoned. He was almost fighting fit, and he could take on an officer of the law or two if it mean being certain that Carter (and Fusco) were safe.
"Ah, I don't think so--" leaning over, Fusco put a hand on John's shoulder.
It rather effectively kept him from achieving more than a half-sitting position, and John realized that maybe he was a little weaker than he'd thought.
"Mr. Reese, I wouldn't advise leaving your bed." Finch scolded from the phone.
Zoe looked amused as she looked between them, though her stray glance at Carter's bed sobered her again.
"Detective Fusco, on no account are you to allow Mr. Reese to leave his bed for the rest of the night." Finch sounded like he didn't really believe this was an order Fusco would be able to enforce.
Fusco snorted, "Yeah, like I'm gonna be able to stop Wonder Boy here if he really decides to go walkabout."
"I'm sure you'll think of something. Ms. Morgan, thank you for your assistance with this."
"A pleasure, Harold." Zoe's thumb pressed lightly against the phone and then she tucked it into her purse. She looked at Carter again, then at John. "I wish I could say I was the type to sit at your bedside, but I've got a crisis to manage elsewhere."
"Thank you, Zoe." Looking past her, John watched the too-distant rise and fall of the sheets on Joss's bed. He shouldn't be here, he should be there. Whole and there, to watch her back as she'd watched his so many times.
"Mmm." With a twitch of the blanket, Zoe stepped away from the bed, her heels clicking on the floor as she walked towards the door. "I'm sure I'll think of some way to make this visit worth my while."
Rumors, misdirection, guesses--Zoe Morgan was good at her job, and John didn't really give a thought to whatever she'd gleaned from their meeting. He knew her well enough by now to know she wouldn't use the information to hurt any of the people in the room.
When she'd gone, he felt his eyes drifting closed and tried to force them open again.
"Doc says you should get all the rest you can." Fusco almost sounded solicitous.
John forced his eyes open and pushed up into a sitting position again, his attention on Carter's bed again.
If he couldn't sit with her, he could watch over her. His fingers itched for a gun, and he twisted to check under his pillow. Nothing.
"Shaw left it down the side."
Ah.
John wondered if he was getting predictable as he choked back a groan of pain and leaned over to fish out the glock Shaw had generously left him. He fumbled through checking the weapon over, then settled back, leaving it in easier reach.
"She'll be all right, you know. She's tough." Fusco didn't even sound like he was trying to convince himself.
That seemed like a good sign. John still kept his attention focused on Carter's bed and the area around it.
Sleep pulled at the edges of his awareness, though, pain just beyond that. As though his body were waiting for his inevitable fall into dreamland, where he would be tortured by mental and physical ailments. Not something he'd ever worried about before, but John didn't want to see Carter in his already all-too-real nightmares.
A sudden movement on the other side of the room made him tense. His shoulder protested as he started to raise the gun. Then he recognized the movement as Taylor, stumbling towards his mother's bedside as he yawned. "Hey, Mom."
There was a breath in, then another out, then a change in the rhythm of her breathing, and John felt his muscles tense. Her rusty, cracked voice was almost too difficult to hear. It sounded wonderful. "Hey, Taylor."
John closed his eyes. He didn't want to relax, but he didn't try to stop the sleep that rolled over him, pulling him down into darkness.
He would have to trust Shaw, trust Finch and Fusco to keep them all safe and watch their backs while he slept. It wasn't what he wanted, and he might berate himself later for the weakness. But there was nothing he needed to, or could, do now. Carter was alive and breathing.
It was enough.
-f-
Rating: G/PG (maybe some language?)
Genre: post-episode, fix-it, comfort-fic
Spoilers: everything up through 3x9
Characters: John Reese, Lionel Fusco, Zoe Morgan, Harold Finch (brief), Joss Carter (brief)
Pairings: vaguely impled Carter/Reese? (I sort of intended it to be there, but it can be read as non-romantic)
Length: 2000+ words
Notes: I wrote this last night. It's the first thing I've written in a good six months. It's not particularly dramatic, and it's not really breaking any new ground. But I enjoyed writing it, so I suppose that's what counts.
As always, the hardest part of the damned thing was finding a title (dear Neil Tennant, you are not helping)
when all the sunlight feels forgotten
by ALC Punk!
"Hey, Carter. What're you tryin' to do, one-up me on getting shot?" Fusco's voice filtered into John's brain, followed by the curious certainty that Carter was going to reply.
She didn't.
Fusco continued talking. "Right, right. You didn't try to get shot, you were just doin' your job. Hey, partner, I think you could'a taken the night off. No one would have called you on it."
There was a strained note in Fusco's voice, and reality told John that he shouldn't be surprised. Joss Carter by all rights should be dead. She had been dead and still in his arms while his heart wrenched into pieces. Emotional pain had always been easier to deny, but getting shot twice had been as nothing to what he'd felt right in that moment.
"Mr. Reese, I don't think--" Finch's wavering voice had broken John's pain just for a moment. He was filled with anger at it, but then Joss had sucked in another, almost too-shallow breath. "I think she's just unconscious."
Frantic, he'd reached for her neck, fingers registering the edge of her vest before the tips found the fluttering almost gone pulse.
Hollow-points. Simmons had almost succeeded in killing Joss Carter even through the vest she'd been wearing. John had breathed deep and then focused on keeping her alive.
By the time the paramedics had gotten there, he was greying-out around the edges, his hands stained with blood from them both. He didn't remember much from the moment they pulled her from his arms; just stumbling, shifting images of flashing lights and bloody hands and Finch making quiet requests in that oh-so-normal way of his.
Waking again didn't hurt as much as it should, and John could feel the edge of something strong pushing at the edges of his perception. A narcotic. Probably one of the higher-end ones.
"Oh, I get it," Fusco said, his voice breaking into John's thought-patterns again. "This is a pissing contest with Wonder Boy over there. See who can take the most bullets in the most interesting places. Well, I think he's got you beat on number, but you got him beat on style."
Fusco's voice was tired, cracked. As though he hadn't stopped talking for hours, as though he desperately needed something to drink. He also sounded in pain, and John wondered vaguely how his fingers were holding up.
Then again, talking wasn't a strain on your fingers.
Definitely a higher-end narcotic.
"Could be worse. Could be some sort of rash." Fusco was definitely winding down, and John wondered if he'd started with heart-felt words and quiet stories about his kid. Maybe. Maybe he'd made mythical play-dates for their children, or plotted their rivalry in college.
John couldn't actually remember how old either boy was, though.
There was a pause, and the sound of water being poured into a cup, being drunk. Fusco made a satisfied little Ah noise, then cleared his throat. "Y'know, Carter, I'm gonna have to bust your chops about this. Laying around while honest cops got a shit-ton of work to do? Definitely not good for morale."
"I thought work wasn't good for your morale, Lionel," John whispered through cracked lips and a scratchy, dry throat. He hoped Fusco would be kind enough to share his water, but he wasn't going to hold his breath.
"It ain't." There was movement, and John could see the shadow of Fusco looming through his eye-lids. "So just remember that the next time I haul your ass out of the fire."
"Thought it was the other way around."
Fusco made a scoffing noise, "Yeah, well, you thought wrong."
John tried to swallow, to dampen his throat and found that he was coughing instead. The pain ripped through his shoulder then, hot and swift, a pinching in his chest and an ache in his bones. Oh, right. He'd gotten shot. He let his eyes flicker open. "Could use some water."
Grumbling about ungrateful people, Fusco turned away and busied himself with the water pitcher and glass. John wasn't fooled, though. Even in the bruises and dim light, he'd seen the relief and worry in Fusco's eyes.
They weren't out of the woods yet, obviously.
"Here--" Fusco moved closer, clumsily helping John up enough to gulp down some of the water.
He ignored how much that hurt, how little the liquid seemed to help with the fur coating his throat.
Bear. He wondered what Bear was doing. Had Finch let Shaw take him for a walk?
"You know, it was, uh, it was touch and go there for a while." Fusco set the glass down and leaned back in the obviously-uncomfortable hospital chair. "Carter, I mean. You were all right, though you'd lost a lot of blood."
"Is she--?" He couldn't even bring himself to ask, and he could feel himself stilling for the blow that Fusco might level.
"She's good. She's stable, at least." Shifting, Fusco looked away from John towards the bed he could see from the corner of his eyes. "They said she might not wake for a while. The bullet shattered and did a lot of damage to her breastbone and lungs. She lost almost as much blood as you did--good thing, too, doc said if she'd been conscious and panicking she'd've bled out too fast."
That wasn't really the best news he'd had, but it would do for the moment. John ran his tongue around his mouth, grimaced, and shifted his shoulders slightly. Just enough to test the limits of the drugs coursing through his system.
There was still pain, but it was bearable. He'd have to have them stop intravenous doses soon, otherwise he'd be too muddled for whatever was coming next.
"Are we safe?"
Not the sort of question he wanted to ask, but better than the alternative.
"Don't know. Maybe. Four-eyes somehow bought out the entire wing of the hospital. It's like a ghost town out there, but Shaw and Carter's ex are keepin' an eye on things."
"Taylor?"
"He's sleeping in the cot on the other side of the room. Said he'd be safest with his mother." Fusco huffed out a breath, his tone changing. "My kid's got the bunk next to his."
It was putting all their eggs in one basket. John didn't like that. Didn't like the feeling that at any moment, Simmons could walk through the door to finish the job he'd started. He pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the spinning of the room and the stabs of pain. "We need to get to safer cover."
"We can't move Joss."
The words deflated John, and he slumped back against his pillows, letting his eyes slip half-closed while he tried to think through the pounding of his blood and the cotton in his brain.
"We don't have to." Zoe Morgan's voice sounded as self-assured as it always did, though John wondered if she was a little tired. The scent of her perfume reached his bed before she did, and he raised his eyebrows at her as encouragement to continue. She nodded to Fusco and leaned a hip against John's bed. "Word on the street is that the last HR lieutenant has been found dead. Murdered by person or persons unknown."
"I'll believe that when I see the body," said Fusco, peering up at Zoe, then looking back at Carter's still form.
John agreed, and idly wondered just who Zoe had talked to. He'd always wondered if her network would be useful in his line of work. Then again, dragging her in deeper would have been dangerous. If she'd even been interested.
"We thought you might not believe Ms. Morgan's word." Finch's voice sounded flat coming from the speaker on Zoe's phone. "But the proof was delivered to detective Carter's precinct less than an hour ago. The Captain received Simmons' head on a platter."
A quick rush of emotion blasted through John, anger, annoyance, ambivalence--Simmons had been his to kill, and yet, he couldn't regret that the man was dead.
Fusco peered at the image on Zoe's phone and made a pained noise. "Yeah, that's Simmons' head on a platter all right."
"John?" Zoe raised an eyebrow and held the phone out to him. He took it, feeling the pull in his injured shoulder as he brought it close enough to see. He'd staged scenes like that before, he knew the things to look for--even in a grainy, smart-phone image. But the head looked genuine to him, and he nodded before handing the phone back.
"Finch," he murmured, "How long until we know for certain?"
"The tip and the image came from my old chess partner, Mr. Reese."
Elias. It occurred to John that Elias would have had a score to settle with Simmons as much as anyone else had. Still, it seemed convenient.
"Maybe I should check into it." The words sounded reasonable, and really, the drugs he'd been given were working great, John reasoned. He was almost fighting fit, and he could take on an officer of the law or two if it mean being certain that Carter (and Fusco) were safe.
"Ah, I don't think so--" leaning over, Fusco put a hand on John's shoulder.
It rather effectively kept him from achieving more than a half-sitting position, and John realized that maybe he was a little weaker than he'd thought.
"Mr. Reese, I wouldn't advise leaving your bed." Finch scolded from the phone.
Zoe looked amused as she looked between them, though her stray glance at Carter's bed sobered her again.
"Detective Fusco, on no account are you to allow Mr. Reese to leave his bed for the rest of the night." Finch sounded like he didn't really believe this was an order Fusco would be able to enforce.
Fusco snorted, "Yeah, like I'm gonna be able to stop Wonder Boy here if he really decides to go walkabout."
"I'm sure you'll think of something. Ms. Morgan, thank you for your assistance with this."
"A pleasure, Harold." Zoe's thumb pressed lightly against the phone and then she tucked it into her purse. She looked at Carter again, then at John. "I wish I could say I was the type to sit at your bedside, but I've got a crisis to manage elsewhere."
"Thank you, Zoe." Looking past her, John watched the too-distant rise and fall of the sheets on Joss's bed. He shouldn't be here, he should be there. Whole and there, to watch her back as she'd watched his so many times.
"Mmm." With a twitch of the blanket, Zoe stepped away from the bed, her heels clicking on the floor as she walked towards the door. "I'm sure I'll think of some way to make this visit worth my while."
Rumors, misdirection, guesses--Zoe Morgan was good at her job, and John didn't really give a thought to whatever she'd gleaned from their meeting. He knew her well enough by now to know she wouldn't use the information to hurt any of the people in the room.
When she'd gone, he felt his eyes drifting closed and tried to force them open again.
"Doc says you should get all the rest you can." Fusco almost sounded solicitous.
John forced his eyes open and pushed up into a sitting position again, his attention on Carter's bed again.
If he couldn't sit with her, he could watch over her. His fingers itched for a gun, and he twisted to check under his pillow. Nothing.
"Shaw left it down the side."
Ah.
John wondered if he was getting predictable as he choked back a groan of pain and leaned over to fish out the glock Shaw had generously left him. He fumbled through checking the weapon over, then settled back, leaving it in easier reach.
"She'll be all right, you know. She's tough." Fusco didn't even sound like he was trying to convince himself.
That seemed like a good sign. John still kept his attention focused on Carter's bed and the area around it.
Sleep pulled at the edges of his awareness, though, pain just beyond that. As though his body were waiting for his inevitable fall into dreamland, where he would be tortured by mental and physical ailments. Not something he'd ever worried about before, but John didn't want to see Carter in his already all-too-real nightmares.
A sudden movement on the other side of the room made him tense. His shoulder protested as he started to raise the gun. Then he recognized the movement as Taylor, stumbling towards his mother's bedside as he yawned. "Hey, Mom."
There was a breath in, then another out, then a change in the rhythm of her breathing, and John felt his muscles tense. Her rusty, cracked voice was almost too difficult to hear. It sounded wonderful. "Hey, Taylor."
John closed his eyes. He didn't want to relax, but he didn't try to stop the sleep that rolled over him, pulling him down into darkness.
He would have to trust Shaw, trust Finch and Fusco to keep them all safe and watch their backs while he slept. It wasn't what he wanted, and he might berate himself later for the weakness. But there was nothing he needed to, or could, do now. Carter was alive and breathing.
It was enough.
-f-